Yesterday in Antigua, Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to reporters and was asked about the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that instructs the IIHF to allow Russia and Belarus to participate in IIHF events.

Specifically referring to this:

"While Russia and Belorussia [sic] are supporting this illegal, unjustified, horrific war in Ukraine, as long as that's going on, there will be none of those athletes competing for their countries in Canada," Carney said when asked if Russian players would be denied visas.
"So if you're asking specifically about the world juniors, the Russians will not be there."

This video should play the relevant portion for you:

It also appears that this measure by Canada will cover all sports, but holds the door open to athletes competing as neutral participants, something that works well for something like tennis, but not team sports as easily.

The CBC article linked above contains this very interesting bit of analysis:

The growing boycott is similar to the situation in soccer in 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On that occasion, all of Russia's potential World Cup qualifying opponents threatened to boycott. FIFA successfully argued at CAS for excluding Russia on the grounds that not doing so risked "irreparable and chaotic" harm to the competition.

Several nations have stated they will not play against Russia, which is not actually the same thing as a boycott. Some sponsors have also demanded they not be associated with any tournament that includes Russia.

USA Hockey has been silent as of time of writing.

This article has some more information from IIHF sources:

Carney buys IIHF time by saying no to Russia at world juniors
Sportsnet.caFrank Seravalli

Last night the Leafs behaved like teenagers left alone to have a Halloween party and pretty much trashed the place. When they realized they were going to be in trouble, they made a seriously valiant effort to clean up their mess.

They actually started to fix things before the second period ended. But they just can't seem to stop with dumb penalties, and it cost them.

Jack Roslovic had two goals, and the flurry at the end of the game was very exciting, and if the ping off the post had gone in, we'd have had a tie game going to OT.

Translation: their PP is too good to have risked it.

It could have been worse! Final score was 3-2 Utah.

The Leafs don't play again until the weekend, which is a back-to-back as payment for the days off, I guess.

I think they have a lot of stuff to practice, at least. And the video coaching sessions should be exciting for everyone.

Jim Hiller would not commit to a John Tavares return this weekend, but it seems likely given their roster moves. Kirill Marchenko is likely to be at least a week away, if not more, as he has not been skating yet.

That's all for now, have a great Wednesday.

From The Branches